


Va Banque

by MachaSWicket



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Mentions of Suicide, Missing Persons, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 16:18:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9828866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MachaSWicket/pseuds/MachaSWicket
Summary: SUMMARY:  Felicity Smoak disappeared on a cold spring day in 2017. This is the story of what comes next.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my darling Susannah, for confirming that I'm not a total crackpot with this. :)

 

 

Felicity Smoak disappeared on a cold spring day in 2017.

To his everlasting regret, Oliver didn’t know immediately; in fact, he had no idea for hours on end that anything was even wrong. Not long after sitting down at his desk at city hall that awful Thursday morning, Oliver texted her something utterly inconsequential. He can’t even remember what he’d said her anymore -- can’t remember what case they’d been working on, or what silly observation he might have passed along for her amusement.

All he remembers is that she hadn’t answered. Which was odd.

But Oliver, back then, had still been trying to give her the space she seemed to want from him. He’d still been trying to “move on” from the love of his goddamn life, carefully holding himself separate from Felicity, despite loving her as fiercely as ever. So he had ignored the unease he felt at her lack of response. And he’d gone on about his day.

Until Curtis had showed up at 9:47, shaky and stuttering with the news that froze Oliver in place.

Felicity was gone.

She’d left her phone in the lair, wiped of all data and reduced to functioning as a paperweight for the cryptic, handwritten note that said only, _I_ _’m sorry. I wish things had ended differently_.

Oliver still has the note.

It’s in one of his Felicity boxes in the bedroom closet in the loft, tucked out of sight except for those days where he needs some visceral connection to her, some evidence that the memory of the woman he loves isn’t some fantasy his brain dreamed up. On those days, he pulls out the pile of pictures from their time together, plus some souvenirs -- a wine cork from her favorite bottle they’d shared in Italy; the bright purple thumb drive she’d handed him back during their first few interactions; a pink sticky note (no longer sticky) that she’d left on the refrigerator in Ivy Town that says _Pick up strawberry shortcake and I’ll love you forever! (I’ll love you forever anyway, but I’d really, really love some yummy dessert tonight)_  in her unmistakable scrawl, the letters growing smaller and smaller as she’d begun to run out of room.

Sometimes he cries, because no matter the reason for her disappearance or whether she’ll one day come home, she is _gone_  and he _misses her_  in a deep, soul-altering kind of way.

Sometimes he aches remembering the way morning light made her hair glow in a fuzzy, frizzy halo around her head, or how her nose would scrunch up a bit whenever she’d failed yet another attempt at cooking, or the feel of her warm skin beneath his fingers.

Sometimes he finds himself smiling, the memory of her presence a _good_  kind of ache in his chest.

Inevitably, though, when he opens his Felicity boxes, he spends hours on that last note, wondering what she’d meant. He’s tried to uncover a secret message -- invisible ink, some kind of code, _anything_ \-- with no luck. He’s paid handwriting experts to confirm what he already knows -- she’d written those words. He’s begged Curtis to go through every single one of her electronics in search of a reason why she’d left, hoping to find the key to understand her note.

The police ruled it a suicide note, but Oliver viscerally rejects that possibility. Even with the stilted distance between them at the time, he’d watched her closely. He _can’t_  believe he would’ve missed the signs.

Still, he’d known there was something going on with her; he’d known for _months_  before her disappearance, and he will never forgive himself for not pushing. Maybe he could’ve helped prevent _whatever_  was the cause of her disappearance.

Why does he always learn his lessons too late?

& & &

The first 48 hours after learning of her disappearance are still a blur to Oliver -- overlapping shades of panic and rage, punctuated by grief-fueled activity and frantic searches with the team, with nothing to show for it. He remembers the pinched look on Diggle’s face, and Thea’s puffy eyes, but none of what anyone had said to him. Because words didn’t matter, concern and empathy for him were besides the point while she was missing. He’d just kept moving -- kicking in doors and rattling any aspect of the criminal element that might have seen anything or known something.

But still: _nothing_.

Nothing until Curtis managed to spot her car on some traffic camera footage that he was reviewing painstakingly. The video showed her car leaving the center of the city just after 3 a.m.

It took excruciating hours for Curtis to trace her route towards the bay via the various working traffic cameras, hackable only by Felicity’s own programs, but he succeeded. The image of her small, red car tumbling off the edge of the Starling Bay Bridge is burned into Oliver’s memory. It haunts his nightmares -- was she in the car? Did she fall hundreds of feet, trapped in that tiny car as it flipped end over end?

Oliver had mobilized divers immediately, and by the end of the second day, they’d located her crumpled car under 60 feet of water. The car was misshapen from the impact, the windows shattered and mostly missing, the deployed air bags drifting lazily in the current. The eerie underwater footage of the discovery haunts Oliver, too.

The divers never found Felicity’s body.

In fact, they never found _anything_  else -- the trail to find Felicity, to find out what happened to her, ends at the Starling Bay Bridge. The police, Oliver’s team, ARGUS on a favor Diggle and Lyla called in, and three separate private investigators hired by Oliver -- no one has ever been able to find even a hint of Felicity after that night.

All of the different investigators agree the most likely theory, taking into account all of the evidence, is that Felicity died the same night she disappeared, her body drawn out to sea once her car hit the water.

But when the SCPD dragged her tiny car out of the water, Oliver was there on the banks, unkempt, unshaven, and exhausted, because he needed to see for himself. The seatbelt was unbuckled, the seat pushed back a bit farther than her preferred spot, and those inconsistencies are enough for Oliver.

He doesn’t know who was driving that car, or what happened to the driver. But he believes -- _has_  to believe -- that Felicity is alive.

Oliver doesn’t know if she was taken or if she left on her own, but he can’t make himself believe she’s dead.

The others have mourned her. They speak of her in the past tense, but Oliver -- he can’t. He can’t accept her death without proof. Diggle is the closest to agreeing with him; he won’t _quite_  admit to Oliver that he holds out hope, but Diggle has gone so far as to say that if anyone could disappear without a trace, it’s Felicity. Curtis is empathetic enough to hide his frustration that Oliver still insists on facial recognition searches at least once a week.

They come up empty every time.

& & &

Oliver’s life in her absence is incomplete.

Diggle and Thea and Curtis miss her badly. Quentin fell off the wagon (briefly) dealing with her disappearance. Worst of all, Donna is a faded version of the woman Oliver knows and loves; he does his best to support her, but Donna doesn’t laugh the way she used to, and her enthusiasm seems to have disappeared along with her daughter.

Felicity’s loss has hit the entire team hard, but over the years, it has also provided Oliver with a bitterly clear look at himself and his life.

The absence of Felicity in his life, and the abrupt end to his hope of reconciliation, of recreating that life he still craves with her -- the pain of missing her has burned away his misconceptions, sharply illuminated his missteps.

He loves her; has loved her for years; will always love her.

Thea has tried to encourage Oliver to date again, to move on again. It’s as unsuccessful now as it was before Felicity disappeared, because this time he has no closure. If he couldn’t truly accept a life without her when she was standing before him telling him that door was closed forever, he absolutely cannot do so now.

Not when he believes she’s alive. Not even after nearly three years.

But he also is clear-eyed enough to know that Felicity wouldn’t want him to regress in her absence; she wouldn’t want him to become that man who isolated himself, who locked his emotions away. Instead, she would want him to continue to heal, to continue to learn how to be a fully realized man, to continue to let people support him when he struggles.

And, oh, does he struggle in the wake of her loss.

Regardless, he tries to live his life with balance -- he is still mayor, and he is getting better at the particular expertise needed to be a force for good from within the system. He is still the Green Arrow, though he relies more heavily on the team than he’s ever allowed himself to before.

And he keeps his family close -- he and Thea work together, yes, but they have weekly dinners to ensure the Queen family maintains at least some traditions. Oliver has a standing invitation to Dig and Lyla’s, and is a constant presence as JJ’s Uncle Oliver. Oliver attends elementary school plays, and occasionally takes JJ out for burgers at Big Belly.

He’s doing his best to be present for everyone that he loves.

So maybe Oliver doesn’t close himself up into a shell of a human the way he would’ve thought he would if he ever lost Felicity, but he can’t bring himself to let go of her. In fact, he’d moved into the loft when it became clear Felicity wasn’t coming back, and lives there among her things and the memories of what they’d had -- of what he’s lost.

Despite what Thea suggested at the time, living at the loft isn’t Oliver’s way to punish himself. He stays at the loft because if he’s right -- if she’s _alive_  -- he wants to be as easy for her to find as possible. He wants her to be able to come home to something familiar, to the small touches that she picked out to make the space her own. He hasn’t changed anything -- the sheets are threadbare and the towels are starting to fray at the edges, but he doesn’t care much for creature comforts.

Somehow, he’s convinced himself that she will show up at the door one day with a smile and an explanation.

That’s not how it happens.

& & &

Oliver is in the middle of a meeting with Quentin, two city councilors, and Thea when his phone buzzes in his breast pocket.

He’s fallen into a certain routine over the years as he’s learned how to balance the competing demands on his life from his public and private responsibilities. Part of maintaining that balance has led him to create specific settings on his phone to ensure he’s only interrupted appropriately depending on where he is and what he’s doing. (He thinks Felicity would be proud of him for his technological efforts.) There are, in progressively restricted order, _home_  and _foundry_  and _city hall_  and _meeting_  and _no contact_  settings. Right now, his phone is set to _meeting_ , which means it does not ring, or buzz, or chirp, or announce incoming calls or messages in any way.

Yet somehow his phone is buzzing.

He’s made it through 1,022 days without her, but still his first thought is of her. Because if anyone could take control of his phone and make her (digital) presence known, it’s Felicity Smoak.

His heart rate spikes and he holds up a hand, undoubtedly interrupting someone mid-thought. “Excuse me for a moment,” he says, ignoring Thea’s confusion and Quentin’s exasperation as he practically bolts out into the hallway. He fumbles his phone free with unsteady fingers, and when he unlocks it, an unfamiliar screen pops up.

It’s a dark green messaging window with light grey, left-justified text that says, _Your security isn’t as bad as I expected_. As he’s reading it, a second message pops up beneath the first: _Also: hi._

Somehow, his heart knows that it’s Felicity; or believes, at least. But he doesn’t know what’s going on -- where she’s been, or why -- so he types back, _Who is this?_  The words appear right-justified, and the text is a very light green.

She doesn’t answer directly. _I’m sorry for how I left. I wasn’t sure how things would go, and a clean break seemed kinder_.

A strangled sob escapes him, and he presses his palm to his chest to contain his racing heart. She’s alive. He stares dumbly at his phone, stunned into inaction. Slumping against the wall on shaking legs, he slides down until he’s sitting on the floor, uncaring how he may look to any random passerby.

_Oliver?_

The sight of his name snaps him out of his momentary fugue. Because he can _hear_  her precise tone of voice as if she were standing beside him -- bemused and a little nervous. Because it’s _Felicity_  texting him. He doesn’t even need to think about how to respond, typing as quickly as he can, _Are you okay? Come home_.

It feels like a small forever that he waits for her answer. _I_ _’m not sure that’s a good idea. I’m okay, but I have to go._

“No!” He’s typing it as he half-shouts it, his breath seizing in his chest. _No, don’t go_. He’s panicked, unable to accept her absence any longer, now that he knows she’s alive. He clutches his phone desperately, because it’s his only link to Felicity.

 _I’ll be in touch_ , she responds, and after a few seconds, the strange program closes, disappearing entirely.

“No, no, _no_!” He’s swiping through applications on his phone, looking for whatever Felicity Smoak special that Arrow-green texting program is, visions of tracing her, of sending her messages, of begging her to come home dancing in his head. But there’s no trace of her, or her program. Of course there isn’t.

He’s berating himself for not screencapping the conversation, when he hears the familiar click of Thea’s heels. He looks at up her with a disbelieving grin, only now feeling the wetness of tear tracks on his face. “Felicity’s alive.”

Thea stops short. “What?”

Oliver lets out a little laugh, his head tilting back to rest against the wall as nearly three years of uncertainty bleeds away. Dropping his phone to his lap, he runs his palms over his face. “She’s alive.”

& & &

Objectively, it _sounds_  crazy -- long-lost, believed-dead woman contacts ex-fiance via secret, disappearing texting program?

Diggle’s the only one who believes him, though Thea, Quentin, and Curtis at least humor what they probably consider his delusions.

Oliver can’t blame them for their disbelief, but he is full of a new kind of hope as he fields their questions. Yes, it’s true that she’d never explicitly said she was Felicity, and, yes, it’s true that someone looking to mindfuck Oliver Queen would be most successful by pretending to be the long-lost Felicity.

It’s absolutely true that this is what Oliver wants most in his entire life -- Felicity home safe -- and he’s been through enough torture, abuse, and mistreatment that he should be skeptical when his fondest wish is offered to him.

But he’s not.

He can’t explain it, but he knows in his bones that she’s alive and that she contacted him.

Even as the days drag on without another peep and he is going out of his mind with impatience, his belief remains unshaken.

Seventeen days after her first outreach, Oliver’s training in the lair when his phone chirps loudly. He’s never heard it make that sound before, and his distraction earns him a bo staff to the face from a surprised Diggle.

“Man, what the hell?” Diggle demands, but Oliver is halfway across the room, barely registering the sharp sting along his cheekbone, because he knows it’s her.

He’s breathing hard as he grabs his phone, unlocking it to find that same strange green messaging program, and another message in light grey text. _Hi. Is Dig with you?_

“It’s Felicity,” he shouts to Diggle, not bothering to turn to look as he replies, _Are you okay? Dig is here. We miss you. Come home._  He has a thousand questions he wants to ask, but the most important things are always going to be making sure she’s okay, and asking her to come home. He needs her to know that she is loved, that they miss her.

“What?” Diggle is at his shoulder in a heartbeat, peering down at the phone screen. “Oh, my God,” he whispers. “I didn’t... Is that really Felicity?”

Oliver doesn’t answer, because Felicity’s answer pops up. _I_ _’m safe. I miss you both. I’m sorry._

 _No need to apologize,_  he replies quickly. _Where are you?_

“Oliver,” Diggle warns, “don’t push.”

Oliver shrugs off the warning, staring intently at his phone, waiting for her response.

_Cleaning up a mess that I made. If everything goes right, I’ll contact you after._

Oliver’s chest tightens, his breathing shallow and panicky. She’s in danger. Whatever she’s been working toward the last three years, whatever is so dangerous that she’d let them believe her dead because she wasn’t sure she’d make it through alive, _whatever_  this is, it’s coming to a head soon. He knows from painful, repeated experience that she’ll be most at risk when she tries to set her plan in motion.

Beside him, Diggle mutters, “Fuck,” and Oliver knows his partner has reached the same conclusion.

 _We can help_ , Oliver answers, typing as fast as he can because this feels like a very brief window to get through to her, to convince her. _Let me help you._

Diggle and Oliver wait in suspended animation, barely breathing, as they wait for her answer.

_I need to do this alone. I miss you both._

_Felicity, please, we’re a team. We can help_. Oliver is breathing hard when he hits send, wound up by anxiety and the burning need to help her. Somehow. Some way.

She doesn’t respond for a long time, and Oliver is half-convinced she won’t, that the program will blink closed any second. And then--

 _I love you, Oliver. I’m sorry_.

He’s paralyzed, unable to respond, unable to comprehend. Unable to _breathe_. He just stares at her words, reading them over and over, trying to believe this is real. Reflexively, he takes a screenshot.

That light grey text pops up again: _Watch the news_.

And he finally understands these messages for what they are -- a goodbye. He’s still typing, _I love you, too_  when the app closes unceremoniously.

He drops like a rock, crouching with his face in his hands, his phone clattering to the floor. “I’m going to lose her for real this time,” he says, mostly to himself. He can’t believe this is happening. “She’s walking into danger and she just wanted to say goodbye.”

Diggle’s strong hand lands on his shoulder, grounding him in the moment. “Our girl survived this long, and I have faith she’ll make it through whatever’s coming. You need to have faith, too, Oliver.”

“I’ve _had_  faith,” he snaps. Because it’s true -- he’s never wavered. Not _once_  since her disappearance has he let himself believe she’s dead. And now--

“Oliver.” Diggle kneels beside him, squeezing his shoulder to get Oliver’s attention. “She wouldn’t be reaching out if she didn’t want to come home. You of all people should understand the power that gives her.”

Numbly, he nods. It’s still hard to catch his breath, to try to release the tension in his entire body. He closes his eyes and attempts to center himself; it’s only marginally successful. He still feels like he’s liable to fly to pieces at any moment.

Diggle glances at the phone on the floor near Oliver’s foot. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to trace her messages,” he muses.

Oliver laughs, a broken, rusty sound. “Whatever that messaging program is, it’s not on my phone as far as I can tell. It disappears when she does.”

Diggle sits with that for a bit, a small, rueful smile surfacing. “Of course it does. Okay. We don’t know where she is, or what she’ll need when this is all over, but we can prepare.”

“Prepare?” Oliver echoes.

Dig gives him a brusque nod. “Prepare to go find her and bring her home.”

It’s nowhere near enough, when Oliver could be by her side, keeping her safe, if only she’d let him. But it’ll have to do. So Oliver pulls himself off the floor and gets to work.

& & &

Fifty-three _excruciating_  hours pass.

Oliver barely sleeps, convinced if he does, he’ll miss her next message. Finally, Thea and Diggle swear they will _both_  monitor his phone (in case one of them falls asleep) and he catches a few hours here and there.

They pack and repack go bags filled with medical supplies, extra clothes, cash in several currencies, and -- at Oliver’s insistence -- Felicity’s old tablet. It’s silly -- it’s not like she’s been without technology while she’s been gone, but it feels like a gift he can bring her, a piece of home.

Oliver checks in at city hall, but can’t stay long. He has no attention span, and ends up taking the rest of the week off. His abrupt vacation spurs speculation in the press, but he can’t be troubled to address it, leaving it for the public relations department to handle. He tries to do a few everyday things, mostly just to pass some of the unrelenting time, but his focus is on the woman he loves, who is somewhere in the world putting herself in danger.

When dinner night with Thea rolls around, she stubbornly refuses to let him cancel. So Oliver hits the grocery store and grabs something simple he can throw together, because he knows his attention span is basically non-existent. He’s in the loft awaiting his sister’s arrival when his phone rings. Instead of the normal chime, it’s the ringtone Felicity had used during most of their months of travel, that long ago summer. Oliver practically upends the skillet on the stove as he lunges for his phone.

“Felicity?” he answers, his voice loud and a little desperate.

“Oliver,” she breathes, and he knows instantly something is very, very wrong.

“Felicity, what’s happening? Where are you?” he demands, caught between panic and a rush of relief at hearing her voice again after all this time.

“It should be on CNN soon,” she says, her voice shaky with what he’s almost sure is pain.

“Are you okay?” She laughs and it turns into a wheezy cough. Oliver’s chest tightens with panic, and he’s moving, turning the stovetop off, dumping the half-grilled veggies into the trash, throwing the prepared meat back into the fridge. “Felicity,” he says, and he actually manages to sound calmer than he is, “I need you to tell me where you are.”

“Heidelberg,” she answers. “Didn’t quite make it out of the building before the big boom.”

For a long, terrifying moment, he can’t move, bombarded with the memory of Tommy dying under the rubble of a building. But panicking will not help her, so he grabs his jacket and keys and yanks open the door to find Thea, hand raised to knock. Hooking his arm into hers, he drags her along towards the elevator. “Heidelberg,” he repeats, a little loudly. “Is that in Germany?”

“Yeah,” Felicity breathes. She coughs, then moans in pain. “I’m so sorry, Oliver I wanted to make it home.”

“No.” He’s shaking his head, refusing to believe this could be it. “No, Felicity, you’re going to be fine.” Thea stiffens beside him, eyes wide, and then she’s digging her phone out, no doubt calling Diggle, putting things in motion. The ride down to the ground floor is interminable. As soon as the elevator doors open, he’s out and moving fast, practically running towards his bike, until Thea yanks his arm to redirect to her car, parked on the street.

“Little bit trapped right now,” Felicity answers, and he hates every single mile keeping him from her side. “So I wanted to call and say a proper goodbye.”

“I’m not going to say goodbye to you, Felicity,” he argues gruffly, climbing into Thea’s car and closing his eyes as she peels out. “You’re going to be fine. Thea’s calling Lyla, and ARGUS will get someone to you, and you’re going to be fine.” It’s an order, not reassurance, but Oliver cannot even contemplate losing her now. He refuses. _Refuses_.

But Felicity has never once been cowed by his attitude. Even now, buried under a building a half a world away, she stubbornly ignores his points and keeps saying all the things he wants her to tell him in person. “I love you, Oliver. Never stopped.” Her voice is growing steadily weaker, and he can tell she’s fighting back tears. “I want you to know I forgive you for keeping me out of things--”

“ _Felicity_ \--”

“--and I hope you forgive me for walking away.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he insists, his words rough with his own tears now. “I’ve never blamed you for my mistakes, Felicity.”

She laughs, shaky and weak. “I’ve made plenty of my own. I just wanted to-- to re-balance the scales a little bit.”

Oliver wants to ask her about what she’s been doing, wants to know why she left. But most importantly, he needs her to know his defining truth: “I love you, Felicity, and I’m coming for you. I’m coming to Germany.”

The line goes dead and Oliver roars his frustration. That can’t be it. That _can’t_  be it.

Felicity can’t die.

& & &

Oliver’s memory of the interminable flight to Heidelberg is fragmentary.

It’s him and Diggle and Thea on a private plane, with Lyla providing updates from back home as she uncovers information about Heidelberg. Two hours after Oliver’s connection with Felicity went dead, Lyla confirms that a woman was pulled from the rubble of a building in Heidelberg. The woman is unconscious; she has no ID on her, and the brief description Lyla gets is inconclusive -- she’s late 20s to early 30s, maybe 5’5”, with blue eyes and long dark hair.

“She’s alive,” Oliver breathes.

By the time they land briefly to refuel in Boston, Lyla has explained the broad outlines of what went down: a multinational hacking and political blackmail ring called Helix was busted up, with simultaneous raids in several cities in Europe, North America, and Asia. Many of the Helix locations were booby-trapped against the uninitiated, including the building in Heidelberg that collapsed on Felicity.

The sting operation was run by Interpol, and ARGUS -- and Lyla -- have very little sway. The version of events on cable news is sanitized and high-level, but Lyla’s only been able to confirm that Interpol had agents on the inside, some professional, and others who contacted the agency of their own volition. No one will talk to her about names or identities of the agents.

Oliver presses his fingertips to his forehead, hiding his face as he processes this. Felicity did this. He knows a little about the hacker she’d befriended years earlier, and the flash drive with a ton of secret data on it. He’d never thought it would lead Felicity here.

Somewhere over the Atlantic, Oliver falls into a fitful sleep, but patch of turbulence wakes him an hour or so before they land. Diggle is already awake, mouth tense. Apprehensive, Oliver pushes himself upright. “What happened?”

“It’s Felicity,” Diggle tells him, and Oliver knows it’s bad from the solemnity of Diggle’s tone. Thea stirs, sitting up and blinking at the two of them. Diggle doesn’t take his gaze off of Oliver. “She’s in surgery. Critical condition.”

Oliver spends the rest of the flight with his head in his hands, willing them to move faster, praying for her to live.

& & &

She’s still alive when they reach the university hospital.

Felicity’s hospital room is dimly lit, the incessant beeps of the various monitors mark off the time as Oliver sits beside her, numb to everything but her.

It’s been hours, but he can’t keep his eyes off of her, can’t stop himself from cataloguing her injuries. There’s a cut on her neck, several bruises along her jawbone, and scratches and scrapes on her arm. Her hair is longer than it’s been in years, and dyed a deep, dark auburn, which contrasts vividly with the pale cast of her skin.

She’s still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen because she’s _alive_.

She’s got three broken ribs, a broken arm, and the internal bleeding had kept her in surgery for nearly five hours. She lost a ton of blood, her spleen, and part of her liver, but the doctors are guardedly optimistic.

Oliver is determined.

He remembers the last time she was injured and hospitalized; he remembers with a sick flush of shame that he’d left her alone, unintentionally letting her think he might not want her anymore. He’d been thoughtless and selfish, unable to face his own fears to be there for her when she’d needed him.

There’s no chance in hell he’ll repeat his mistakes. He refuses to leave her side, regardless of the rooms Diggle and Thea secure in a hotel one block away. Felicity has been on her own nearly three years, and he will not let her wake up alone in a hospital room.

The first time Felicity wakes, she’s groggy and smiles at him, stumbling over his name before slipping back into sleep. He is overwhelmed by the wave of relief and happiness he feels. She’s still mostly out of it, still in serious (but stable) condition, but he knows she’s going to be okay.

He has never appreciated her strength more than in this moment.

It’s not until the fifth time she wakes that she _really_ wakes, her brow furrowing as she looks at him. “Am I dead?” she wonders. Then she purses her lips. “No,” she corrects herself with a tiny laugh. “You’re not dead, so I’m not dead.” She blinks slowly. “Good drugs.”

“You survived,” he tells her with a smile, clutching her hand and leaning in so close. His pulse picks up at the sight of her beautiful blue eyes after all this time. “I came to Germany for you, Felicity.”

She smiles at him, tears leaking from the corner of her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says again.

He can’t stop himself from reaching up with his free hand to smooth her hair back from her face. He lets his fingers drift along her cheekbone. “Make it up to me,” he suggests. “Come _home_.”

Her smile fades and she studies him in that disarming way of hers. When she looks at him like this, it feels like she can see him down to the darkest parts of his soul. He holds her gaze, determined to let her in. He wants her to see everything, to understand that he’s grown and changed, but that he still loves her with everything in him.

“I want to,” she answers finally. “But I’m not sure if I should.”

He can see the pain and exhaustion in her face, so he nods his acceptance of her answer. He hopes with a desperate intensity that she’ll decide to come home to Starling, but he will not push. Oliver is done trying to make decisions for her; he will support her and live with her choices, even if that means he spends the rest of his life missing her.

He ducks his head and kisses the hand he’s holding. “I hope you change your mind.”

& & &

They’re in Heidelberg for nearly two weeks as Felicity improves steadily.

Oliver essentially moves into her hospital room, while Thea and Diggle spend most of the visiting hours there as well.

Thea is a Oliver’s saving grace; she tells Felicity all about what she’s missed, but her tone and her attitude are conversational; joyful. She doesn’t blame Felicity for leaving, or let the conversation move into awkward territory. Somehow, she makes Felicity smile at last a few times each day, which Oliver deeply appreciates, because Felicity is quieter, more somber than she used to be.

And when Felicity retreats, Diggle isn’t bothered a bit by the silence. He holds Felicity’s hand for long stretches, content to just keep watch. When she’s up to it, he tells her about JJ, and shows her some pictures, making her laugh until it hurts her ribs with stories of JJ and Uncle Oliver.

As the days pass and she continues to heal and get stronger, Felicity remains something of a puzzle to Oliver -- she’s the woman he remembers, the woman he loves. She’s kindness and enthusiasm, even if some of it is dimmed by her physical pain and her fatigue. She’s quick to smile, and he can _see_  how much she’s missed them.

But he can see new facets of her, too. He can see the thread of sadness, and the heavy layer of guilt. Sometimes, when she looks at him, he can see what he’s pretty sure is self-loathing, and it breaks his heart for her. He remembers what it feels like to be in the middle of all of that negative emotion, and he wishes he could save her from it.

Another thing he’s learned in the years without her is that the best thing he can do for a loved one who’s struggling is support her. Not drown in his own guilt that he’d failed to keep her from the pain, or wish futilely to fix it. Just... _support_  her.

So as she begins to tell her story in bits and pieces, he is a quiet, stalwart presence, attentive but never pushy.

“I paid someone to get rid of my car,” she tells him one morning. He’s drinking coffee and trying to work the kinks out from sleeping in a lounge chair; he’s not at all prepared for her confession. Still, he turns to her with a non-committal hum, and she continues, “They were supposed to make it disappear the same time I did. You weren’t supposed to find it in the Bay,” she confesses, her voice low and guilt-ridden. “You weren’t supposed to think I was dead.”

He nods once. “I never did.” Off her confused look, he clarifies. “I never thought you were dead.”

A few days later, Diggle is off on a food run and Thea left an hour earlier to go buy Felicity some clothes for when she’s released, which the doctors say will be soon. Felicity shifts uncomfortably in the bed, keeping her gaze averted. “I got mixed up with Helix way before I left,” she confesses. “I was pretty messed up after--” She takes a breath. “After Havenrock, and then everything with Billy.”

Oliver feels the familiar twist of grief and regret. “I’m sorry about Billy.”

“I know,” she answers. “I just mean-- Going after Prometheus, getting what I told myself was justice for Billy, it was easy to let the ends justify the means. I got access to Helix files and I...”

The silence spools out between them, but he doesn’t let himself voice any of his dozens of questions. This is her story to tell, and he will accept the pieces in whatever order she decides to offer them.

Felicity sighs “I made excuses and I justified and I used their information for my own purposes, and I was too far into it before I realized all the mistakes I was making.”

“So you infiltrated,” he says slowly, putting her context together with what Lyla told them. “And then at some point, you called Interpol.”

“Called.” She huffs a small laugh, then shifts uncomfortably, her hand protectively laid over her injured ribs. Still, she’s smiling when she says, “Well, I sent them an encrypted packet of data bounced off of fifteen different anonymizers. But yes.”

It takes Oliver a few minutes of silence to decide what he wants to say, and how best to say it. He still struggles with words in the most important moments. “I wish you hadn’t been in danger,” he tells her, holding her gaze, “but I’m so proud of your bravery, Felicity.”

She flushes and looks away. “I was just trying to fix my mistakes.”

“That doesn’t make it any less courageous,” he tells her.

They sit in silence until Diggle arrives with dinner.

& & &

The question of where Felicity will go next remains unasked until two days before she’s set to be released from the hospital. It’s not Oliver who broaches the topic, but Thea. And in her sometimes frustratingly blunt manner, Thea tosses out the question casually, in front of all of them, after a particularly grueling PT session for Felicity.

“You’re coming back with us, right?” Thea asks, her eyes on her takeout. “I mean, that’s kind of obvious. You were on some secret hacker mission, but that’s over and so you’re coming back to Starling with us.” Thea glances up, locking gazes with Felicity. “Right?”

Felicity flushes a bit, her hands tangling together on the light blue hospital blanket. “I’m not sure,” she says. The bed is raised so that she’s nearly sitting upright, which makes it harder for her to avoid their gazes. She still tries, dipping her chin as she answers, “I don’t know what’s left for me in Starling.”

Oliver swallows past the searing pain and says, “We are there, Felicity.” He swallows hard, tries to dial back the ferocity in his tone. “Your family is there. The team. We all miss you and would love to have you back.”

When she looks up, her gaze catches on him, and he hates the uncertainty and doubt he can see in her face. “I’m not the same person I was,” she says slowly. “I’ve done things--”

“Felicity,” he interrupts, because he can’t abide her thinking he would reject her even a moment longer. “Nothing you’ve done can change the fact that you’re a good person, a kind person. Nothing could make me stop loving you.” It’s not the time or the place, but he can’t keep the sentiment in any longer. He doesn’t care that there’s an awkward silence in the wake of his declaration, he doesn’t care that his sister and his brother in all but blood are sitting a couple feet away. It’s the truth.

Felicity watches him carefully. She’s better at masking her emotions than she used to be, but he can still read her surprise in the slight lift of her eyebrows. “You don’t know everything I’ve done.”

Oliver reaches for her hand, desperate for some kind of tangible connection. Her fingers are cool in his grip, but she holds on tight. “You don’t know everything I’ve done, either,” he tells her, “but you loved me anyway.” He uses the past tense on purpose -- he won’t hold her to what she said in extremis. And he has a larger point to make anyway. “More importantly, I’ve been where you are, Felicity. You know that I understand how hard it is to believe you’re ready to come home. Or to believe you _deserve_  to come home.” He hears Thea take an unsteady breath, but he doesn’t take his eyes off of Felicity, his attention catching on the faded yellow bruises on her pale skin, and the cuts that have healed from angry red to raised pink lines. He knows only a small portion of her wounds are visible. “You _do_  deserve it, if that’s what you want.”

She’s wavering. “Oliver...”

He feels like the rest of his life is hanging in the balance. “If you want to come home, Felicity, please, _please_  let me help.”

Her gaze slides away from him; she looks at Diggle, and then Thea, before dropping her gaze to her lap. Finally, _finally_ , her grip on his hand tightens, and she gives a curt nod. “Okay,” she whispers.

Oliver exhales, blinking back the burn of tears. “Yeah?”

She glances at him and away, a mix of the unrelentingly brave woman he’s known and loved for years and the new reticence she’s displayed since she woke up in this hospital bed.

“Yeah,” she confirms finally. “I want to go home.”

& & &

Two years, ten months, and 22 days after her disappearance, Felicity Smoak arrives home in Starling.

She’s got an arm in a cast, taped up ribs, and a still-healing surgical incision, so Oliver nixes Thea’s welcome home party idea. Instead, Lyla meets them at the airfield, hugs Felicity gently but for quite a while, and then drives them home.

Donna is waiting when they arrive at the loft, and her delighted scream at the sight of her daughter is so reminiscent of the bubbly Donna from years ago that Oliver grins. Then he excuses himself, bringing the bags upstairs and moving his toiletries from the master bedroom to the guest bathroom, and grabbing a few changes of clothes. He should probably offer to let her have the loft to herself, and he will leave if she asks, but he’s not strong enough to volunteer.

It doesn’t seem to occur to Felicity that he’s been living here until she trudges up the stairs to go to bed. He helps her out of her sling, and as she lowers herself onto the bed with a tired sigh, she catches sight of his journal on the nightstand.

“Oh.” Oliver flushes, reaching out to remove it. “I forgot that.”

Felicity’s sharp gaze glances around the bedroom, and he knows she’s figured it out. But she just offers him a half-smile, clearly too tired for that kind of conversation.

In fact, it will take them weeks to address the elephant in the room, because coming back to what was once normal after struggling through hell is exhausting. No one knows this better than Oliver, so he bides his time. He keeps a respectful distance, but makes sure Felicity has what she needs to heal.

What she needs is mostly her family. Donna stays for a month, sleeping in the master bedroom with Felicity and leaving Oliver to the guest room. Donna doesn’t comment directly on Oliver’s presence, but one night when they cross paths in the kitchen after Felicity has gone to bed, Donna hugs him tightly and whispers, “Thank you for bringing my baby girl home.”

Oliver can’t speak around the lump in his throat.

Thea drops by almost daily, and Diggle and Lyla take turns swinging by with food. Oliver invites Curtis over when she’s been back a few days, but keeps the rest of the team away for another week. Felicity makes an effort with Quentin, dropping by city hall when he hasn’t appeared at the loft after two weeks.

All in all, Felicity adjusts better and more quickly than Oliver had back in 2012.

& & &

Thea rents out a trendy boutique restaurant downtown and throws Felicity a coming home party when she gets the cast off.

About halfway through the party, Felicity disappears onto the patio of the restaurant. Most of the people in the room are vigilantes, so Oliver knows her attempt at some quiet time has not gone even a little bit unnoticed. Still, no one follows her.

Until Oliver slips out there, ten minutes after her. She’s standing at the far end of the patio, elbows on the railing. She chose a new dress for the night -- a deep purple cocktail dress with a halter top and a loose skirt that hits her mid-thigh. The slight lean of her body has the skirt showing more of her thighs, and Oliver notes, yet again, just how beautiful she is.

“Felicity?”

She waves him closer, half-turning when he approaches. She’s gorgeous in the moonlight and the orange-y glow of the heat lamp. Her hair is that familiar blonde again, and she’d trimmed off six inches several weeks back; tonight it tumbles down past her shoulders in loose waves. She’s got her familiar glasses on, and her lips are a bright, kissable pink.

She’s coming back to herself; he knows her scars will never disappear entirely, but she’s coming back out of her protective shell these days. She’s letting her friends see her clearly, and Oliver’s chest warms at the pleased smile she turns his way.

“Having fun?” he asks.

She skips the small talk, confronting scary subjects with that easy bravery of hers. “I meant what I said when that building fell on me,” she tells him, absently rubbing her recently un-casted arm. “I love you. I never stopped.”

His pulse spikes and he takes a half-step closer to her. “I never stopped loving you,” he answers softly. Truthfully. “I’m here whenever you’re ready.”

She laughs unsteadily, and it reminds him of a thousand shared moments in their past. It makes him hope for a thousand more moments in a shared future. “Just like that?” she asks.

He nods. “Just like that,” he confirms with a grin. “I had a lot of time to think while you were gone, and I won’t make the same mistakes.”

She reaches for him, her hand skimming down his arm until she can tangle their fingers together. “I know, Oliver. I know that.” She takes a breath and steps right up to him, tilting her head back. “I’m not ready yet.”

She’s so close it’s taking all his willpower not to reach for her. “Okay,” he tells her. It is okay. She is alive, she’s healing, and she’s _here_  -- he is willing to wait for the rest.

Felicity studies his face. “I’ll be ready soon,” she breathes, and then she goes up on her tiptoes and she’s kissing him.

Oliver kisses her back, following her lead enthusiastically. It’s coming home, and her nearness overwhelms his senses. Carefully, he places a hand on her back, not pressuring her, but needing to embrace her somehow. She leans into him in response, her warm, familiar body pressed up against his, and this moment, right here, makes up for every single moment he missed her while she was gone.

When she pulls away, she’s smiling at him so warmly that it makes his breath catch. “ _Very_  soon,” she tells him.

Oliver can only nod.

& & &

Things happen quickly after her coming home party.

Three weeks later, she climbs into his bed in the guest room, baring her body and her scars to his worshipful touch. Two days after that, he moves back into the master bedroom with her.

When Felicity has been back six months, Oliver proposes. He takes her to the restaurant from her coming home party, and after dinner, he leads her out onto the patio and pulls a ring from his pants pocket. It’s a new ring -- a large sapphire surrounded by diamonds. She laughs as she says yes, then cries when he slips the ring onto her finger.

One year after her return to Starling, Felicity marries Oliver in a small ceremony in a historic bookstore downtown that they rented out for the occasion. They pledge themselves to each other in front of their friends and family.

In his vows, Oliver tells her again that she is his always, and that he will never stop being thankful for the chance to be hers.

In her vows, Felicity promises that she will always come home to him.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Va banque is gambling slang for going all in/risking everything, which seemed to capture Felicity's choices in this story.


End file.
